Monday, April 21, 2014

Letter to Richard - 21 April 2014 (Easter)

Dear Richard

Wow – your new area sounds like an amazing experience! You’re being a real pioneer!

Life here carries on as normal… This is a very busy time of year for me, right in the middle of the semester, and with my students’ having written their test last Monday we’ve been marking all the time since then, in addition to all of the other work that we’re needing to get through… I will be very glad when we get into May! April just seems insane every year, made much worse also by having 2 birthdays and often Easter and lots of public holidays which makes getting anything done almost impossible… But it will pass! We also have things like working on the final editing of the new textbook to fit in and other projects… But you get the picture…

We’ve just come to the end of the Easter weekend, and it’s for the most part been a really nice weekend. We spent time with Andrew’s family on Friday, and our family on Sunday. Joshua had a playdate with his friends, and we went to the beach this morning with Mom and Dad and Andrew’s cousin, Bernard, and his family who are now living in our area as well. And this afternoon we even had some time where Andrew and I got to read a bit and the kids were playing quietly – a hint of things to come a bit more frequently as time goes by! Oh, and the coolest thing happened – the kids had real proof of the Easter Bunny! When we were driving to church we noticed that there were real paw prints on the windscreen of my car and there was even some fur on the one corner as well! Some small animal was definitely crawling on my car the night before ;) Best thing ever for a parent to find as well! I love this age where the kids are so in love with the magical side of Christmas, Easter and losing teeth. I hope we enjoy this for a long time to come!

What has really impressed me this weekend is how much the kids know about the Easter story. We’ve discussed it often and almost every time they would add an extra detail which I don’t think we had told them. So they’ve been talking about it at school and at church, and they really are absorbing it! We had our second Sunday afternoon FHE yesterday, and Josh did the lesson for us again, and he could just tell us so much! J And what I’ve been emphasising over and over again is that not only do we remember that Jesus died at Easter time, but also that He came alive again, so that we can go back to live with Heavenly Father. What a blessing to know that!

We had a few milestones with Joshua this week – he lost his third tooth on Wednesday, and he was managing to ride his bike without his training wheels today! He was even managing to push off on his own – so really huge! Unfortunately this was all after too little sleep the last few days and way too much chocolate, so he wasn’t in a mood to appreciate his success, and he just got frustrated with the times he wasn’t getting it right… But at least he can do it now J We’re planning on getting a bike for Hannah for her birthday, so then she’ll also be able to properly learn, although with the training wheels at first, of course.

So that’s us this week. Busy as always, but hopefully things will calm down soon J

Love you lots

Shelly

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